


The Rush Will Take You Away

by farfarawaygirl



Category: Chicago Fire
Genre: F/M, I ship these loser so hard, fall in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:07:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23034481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farfarawaygirl/pseuds/farfarawaygirl
Summary: Sylvie feels floaty. She’s very warm. Her lips are kind of tingly. That always happens when she gets sangria with citrus fruit in it, it’s a pleasant side effect. She makes fish lips at Kim, who is on the phone with Atwater.“Kevin!” She is saying, her face pinched a little, eyes bright. “I’m fine. You don’t need to pick me up.”“Kevin!” Sylvie sings, “Kevin! We’re fine! We had fish tacos!”“Right!” Kim gives a conspiratorial nod, winking at Sylvie. “We had fish tacos.”
Relationships: Sylvie Brett/Matthew Casey
Comments: 18
Kudos: 301





	The Rush Will Take You Away

**Author's Note:**

> Even if Gabby does show back up, I feel like they’re done. But, who knows, I’ve been wrong before. 🤷🏻♀️ 
> 
> I hope it’s clear, this is a future fic? Like a couple of weeks from now, closer to Cruz’s wedding.

Honestly, Sylvie should have seen this coming. 

Life should have prepared her for this. But no, she is standing here, having her heart broken in real time. It kind of feels like she swallowed a balloon full of sand, it’s crushing her airways and makes her want to puke. Sylvie curls her hands into fists, tries to breathe through it.

God, she wishes she was literally anywhere but here. 

Her eyes prickle a little as she fights back tears. 

“Brett?”

Kim sounds a little amused, Sylvie turns toward her, feeling dazed and unfocused. 

“Are you okay?”

Sylvie has invited Burgess to a spin class a few weeks ago, and now they spin together two times a week. It’s a fresh friendship, both of them rattled by life events over the last year, and finding it easier to grow that intimacy with someone more removed than a co-worker or current friend. They’ve bonded quickly. 

What she would have said flies out of her head as Kim steps closer and sees where she was looking. 

“No way! Gabby’s in town?”

Here’s the thing. Sylvie knew Gabby would be in town, and she knew that date was approaching. What she did not expect was Gabby to be in town tonight. 

At dinner with Matt. 

Honestly. Her life is a clusterfuck.

She’s about to push Kim away and urge them to some other place when Gabby looks up, sees them, starts and then waves. 

Kim is opening the door and stepping into their intended dinner spot before Sylvie can do anything. 

She could run. She could just sprint down the sidewalk and be done with this situation. But manners and a morbid sense of self flagellation make her kind of float behind Kim towards this disaster. 

By the time she catches up to Kim, both Gabby and Matt are standing. Matt’s back is to her, so he hasn’t seen her yet. She wills him to not turn around. She pleads with God, and thinks about what she could offer in trade. A week of walking her elderly neighbours beagle? Making 24 dozen cupcakes for the shelter? No TV for the rest of the year? 

Ultimately it doesn’t matter, because he turns and now they’re suspended in amber looking at each other. 

Until his elbow knocks over a glass of water.

“You’re so clumsy, babe!” Gabby laughes. 

Babe. 

Sylvie genuinely might puke. 

Sylvie stands uselessly while Gabby, Matt and Kim right it, use napkins and laugh while they clean up. She counts backwards from seven, and wills herself not to vomit. 

From nowhere Gabby finds her and gives her a hug. It’s an alien kind of familiar. These are the arms of her former ambo partner. She has cried in these arms. Laughed in them. Hugged them back fiercely. Fought with the owner of them. 

Gabby is different. He arms feel more muscles, her hair is shorter, her perfume is different. 

In comparison Sylvie feels like a goblin. Her and Kim are makeup free and pink tinged from exercise. Wearing oversized sweaters and beanies to Gabby’s trim shirt and leather jacket. Why did agree to dinner? Why did she suggest here? 

Why won’t the ground open up and swallow her?

She hears Gabby’s voice like she’s under water. 

“What are you guys up to?”

Kim answers, easy and unbothered, “Sylvie’s date ditched her, so we went to spin class and now we’re here for beer and tacos.”

Sylvie darts her eyes over the Matt. 

He’s staring intently at her. 

Just like that everything’s back in focus. 

“Dick move.” She hears herself say. “But at least Kim was there to rescue me.”

“Maybe something came up.” Matt says, lips tight. 

“Yeah.” Sylvie agrees, scuffing her shoe. “Maybe it did.”

“You’re in town for a wedding, right?” Kim asks Gabby, but her eyes flick between Matt and Sylvie. Detective mode. 

“Yeah, Cruz is getting married.” 

Gabby keeps the conversation going, taking her seat again, while Matt is still standing there, shirt front a little damp, looking at Sylvie. 

He was wearing that shirt the first time they kissed. 

“You guys need a table?” 

Sylvie nods to the waitress, feeling numb. It’s okay. She’ll get though this. She won’t cry. 

“Antonio is doing great. Working the program and leading a whole team. He’s happy.” Gabby smiles over at Matt who sat down at last, “I love seeing the people I love happy.”

Honestly, gag Sylvie with a spoon. 

Like, give her a paper cut and pour lemon juice on it, that would be easier to bear. 

Thank God for Kim, who somehow knows and is protecting Sylvie. 

“How are you?” Gabby’s voice gets softer, “I heard about,” she looks at Kim’s stomach, “you getting hurt.”

Now it Sylvie’s turn to protect her friend. 

“Looks like they’ve got our table!” She links arms with Kim, “You’ll be by the house next shift?”

Gabby spouts off a reply about visiting her family. 

“Bye, Casey.” Brett allows herself one last lingering look at the him before she marches Kim to their open bar table. 

“Thanks.” Kim offers, red from more than the spin class. 

“You rescued me, first.”

Sylvie opens up the drinks menu. 

“So, the dick was Casey. He stood you up.”

“Yup.” Sylvie pops her ‘P’.

“Ass.” Agrees Kim. 

To the waitress who has just stepped beside their table, Sylvie orders, “a pitcher of white wine sangria, and your best fish tacos.”

It’s that kind of night. 

——————

Sylvie feels floaty. She’s very warm. Her lips are kind of tingly. That always happens when she gets sangria with citrus fruit in it, it’s a pleasant side effect. She makes fish lips at Kim, who is on the phone with Atwater. 

“Kevin!” She is saying, her face pinched a little, eyes bright. “I’m fine. You don’t need to pick me up.”

“Kevin!” Sylvie sings, “Kevin! We’re fine! We had fish tacos!” 

“Right!” Kim gives a conspiratorial nod, winking at Sylvie. “We had fish tacos.”

“And how much to drink?” Matt materializes beside Sylvie, his hand on her elbow, Sylvie jumps clutching the table top to stay upright. 

“Sylvie! It’s the dick!”

Sylvie and Kim collapse into giggles. Kim makes a gesture with her hands that Sylvie knows is hilarious, but she can’t really remember why. It involves a story earlier about a chicken and a bad boyfriend, but she can’t remember it exactly. “Chicken!” She wheezes at Kim, and they gasp out more laughter. 

Gabby come up beside mat, her jacket zipped, purse on her shoulder. Sylvie vaguely notes that they’ve been here for almost two hours. Suddenly her stomach hurts. 

“You must be pretty upset about being stood up.”

“Nah,” Kim objects, wagging her finger in Gabby’s face. “He’s trash.”

“Cute trash.” Sylvie confirms. 

From the corner of her eye she sees Matt crack a grin. 

“Besides. We’ve sworn off men.”

“All they do is lie.”

Sylvie lays her head down on the table. She closes her eyes, and then squints one open so she can just see the elbow of Matt’s shirt. She liked that shirt. It has felt soft under her fingers, she remembers how the pearly buttons had felt under the press of her palm. She listens to them talk around her, thinking about the pounding of her heart. 

“Well, it’s a party over here.” 

Kevin’s here to get her and Kim. Sylvie pushes herself up, digging in her pocket for cash. She pulls out a fistful if cash and places it on the table. Matt reaches out, sorts the bills and slips a few back in her sweater pocket. He reaches both hands out, and gently tugs the zipper closed. 

That makes her feel the saddest of all. 

“Come on, Sylvie.” Matt’s sliding an arm around her waist, she wishes he hadn’t canceled their date. Sylvie wishes he had shown up as planned and dinner was over, that his hand was sliding over her waist for completely different reasons. But he had sent her a text that afternoon that a job had gone long and he’d have to reschedule. 

“How was work, Casey?” She asks as he pulls her off her seat, over his shoulder she watches Kevin grin down at Kim, Kim is steady on her feet, she didn’t have as much sangria as Sylvie did. Gabby puts her hand on Matt’s shoulder. That pesky urge to cry is back. 

Without following the conversation Sylvie ends up outside, Kim on one side and Kevin on the other. Matt and Gabby are trailing behind them discussing something, for all Sylvie knows it their plans to move to Puerto Rico together. She hopes they don’t. Matt would sunburn too easily. 

She hopes they don’t stay here. 

What if they invite her to their wedding, now that she knows that it feels like to be pressed against a car door by Matt? When she knows how it sounds when she kisses his neck. She wouldn’t go. She’d change her name and move to Peru. 

“Adios!” Sylvie announces, thinking of what SPF she should pack. 

Gripping Kevin’s large bicep she sways in her sneakers. 

“I’ll take Sylvie home.” 

Once more Matt’s popping up in front of her. He detangles her from Atwater’s arm, unthreading her and Kim. 

“Be careful with her Casey,” Kim warns, “I have a gun.”

“Shit, Burgess,” Atwater grouses, “not so loud.”

“Not now! Just in general.”

Sylvie nods, that’s true. She saw her store it in a safe when she was picking up Kim last week. 

“She’s very good with it!” 

Casey and Atwater are shaking hands, she’s blowing kisses at Kim, asking Matt where his car is parked as they move down the street. It takes a moment to realize Gabby is moving beside them, Sylvie doesn’t think she’s imagining the hard set of her mouth. 

God, she’s a third wheel. This is the worst. 

Matt’s steering her down the sidewalk, walking a little too fast. Sylvie looses her footing on the uneven sidewalk, closing her eyes to stop the world from spinning. 

“Sylvie!” Matt snaps, hailing her upright before she even really falls, steadying her shoulders, he has very blue eyes. For a liar. 

Gabby comes up beside her, slinging Sylvie’s arm over her shoulders, and wrapping one of her arms around her own waist. 

“You must have been really upset about this guy. It’s not like you to drink too much.”

Matt reflexively clears his throat. 

Sylvie leans on Gabby. That’s safer. She doesn’t want to slowly remove Gabby’s shirt. She has never kissed Gabby, pressed against the door of her car. 

“You don’t have a car.”

Her statement confuses both Matt and Gabby who share a glance. 

They’ve reached Matt’s old reliable pick up. He opens the passenger door and half picks up her so she gets in the cab, he’s got on knee on the bench while he helps her get settled. She thinks he takes too long buckling her in. 

“Hurry up, Matt. I want to go home.”

The seat belt clicks. Sylvie leans her head back, head on the cool glass of his back windshield. Gabby is settling in beside her. 

Matt’s turning down Wabash when she remembers that she has gummies in the glove box. It’s hard to open without smashing Gabby’s knees, but she gets it open, apologizing for her poor manners and triumphantly pulls out her mostly empty bag of cola bottles. 

“Want one?” She offers Gabby, helping herself. 

Gabby shakes her head. Matt’s reaching for the bag when Sylvie tries to sway him away. She fails and he gets two. 

“Those are mine!” She cries. “Your picked sour patch kids, and you ate them all!”

Matt elbows her a little, and she think of how this evening could have gone. She suddenly feels much, much, too sober. 

“You should have turned left there.” Gabby points out. 

“Your hotel is further down town.”

Gabby seems surprised. “I thought you’d drop Brett off first.”

Matt lets out a gust of air. Sylvie thinks he’s annoyed. Well, she didn’t ask for a ride, so he’d better not be annoyed with her. 

“Dawson.” Matt flicks on a turn signal. Sylvie is very aware of her thigh against his, the feel of his denim through the netting on her gym leggings. “It’s different this time.”

Sylvie’s definitely hallucinating now. 

Matt pulls up out front of a nice downtown boutique hotel. He stops the truck and gets out, rounding in front of the vehicle while Sylvie and Gabby track his movements. Graciously he opens the passenger door, and closes it one Gabby gets out. Sylvie feels likes she’s having an out of body experience. Except also like she’s firmly belted down, because she attempts to remove her seatbelt and can’t do it. After a moment of speaking, Matt waves, and get back in the truck. 

His face is blank as he starts the truck, but watching him makes Sylvie feel sick so she turns back around and closes her eyes. Leans her head back. Feels each bump and divot in the road through the back of her skull and the windshield. 

Sylvie feels disproportionately sad. Not like the sadness is too big for the situation, but like she’s too full of sadness. 

She should have known better. 

She should never have let him kiss her. She shouldn’t have leaned on him with the stuff about her mom. Why did she kiss Matt back? Why did she look at him and think, he could be hers. She feels stupid and about thirteen. She wants her bed, and warm socks, and to cry for fourteen hours strait. 

Sylvie’s too tired to hide her tears. She just lets them leak down her face, eyes closed in Matt’s truck, wishing she was anywhere else. 

When Matt finally stops the car, Sylvie stays still, doesn’t want to move. Matt’s right hand has fallen from the ignition to his thigh, and she is so acutely aware of it, that is hurts in her chest. 

“I’m a dick.”

That startled a watery laugh from her. 

Sylvie squints open an eye and dips her head towards him, they’re close in the half cab of his truck. Matt’s arm is warm beside hers. He’s looking straight ahead. Of course Matt would admit he was a dick. That the least dick-like thing a guy could do. 

He watches her fumble with the seatbelt. There is a small smile just at the corners of his eyes. It’s sincere. He’s not even mocking her. 

“I had too much sangria.” Sylvie hates the whine in her voice. 

Matt is slow when he reaches over, gently moving her hand away, unbuckling her easily. Up close his face is so familiar. It’s such a part of her life, Sylvie hates to think this is the last time she’ll get to be so close to it. 

Her hands move without her consent, she strokes his cheek, pats the soft hair over his ears, runs a finger over his lips. At some point Matt has closed his eyes. It’s a strange and intimate moment. She reminds herself she’s saying good bye, but to what?

Matt, certainly. 

After tonight he’ll go back to being just Casey, and she’ll go back to just Brett. 

She’s saying good bye to this closeness between them. The possibility of a future. 

How could she have planned a future with someone she was only starting to figure things out with? They hardly had a chance to start. 

She’s crying in earnest now. Snotty. Big, wet tears rolling down her face. 

“At least no one knew about us.”

Matt’s eyes snap open, and she grabs her wrists. 

“What?”

“Now that you’re back with Gabby.”

Matt is shaking his head. 

“I’m not.”

“Not what?” Sylvie feels like he’s not hearing her. 

“Not back with Gabby.”

“But you went on a date with her.” Matt shift uneasily. “Our date.”

“I should have been honest with you. She called me this afternoon and I panicked. She wanted to get dinner, and I knew I’d be seeing her all week, but I wanted to get it out of the way.”

“Get what out of the way?”

Matt groans, rubs a hand over his face, “the first meeting. I shouldn’t have canceled. I shouldn’t have lied.”

He’s wiping at her tears with his thumbs. 

“And everyone knows about us.”

Sylvie starts a little. “What? Who?”

“Severide. Kidd. Herrmann. Gallo. Foster.” 

She rolls her eyes, saying, “no they don’t.”

“Yes they do.”

“Well, then fine, we’ll tell them it didn’t work out.”

Matt’s straightens our in surprise, “wait, are we breaking up?”

Sylvie doesn’t know how to respond. She looks down, fiddling with her watch strap. Matt’s hand close over her wrist once more. 

“I’m really hoping we’re not breaking up.” 

She squints up at him. 

“Did you kiss Gabby?”

“No.” He shakes his head, “I could hardly pay attention to Gabby because I could see you over her shoulder. You drove me crazy all night.”

“You have to get rid of this shirt.”

“What?” Matt laughs, looking down his chin at the dress shirt. 

“Yes,” Sylvie bobs her head, “you wore it when you kissed me, and I’m really mad you wore it on your date with Gabby.”

“Not a date.” He reminds her. 

“So, does that mean you can kiss me?”

Matt responds by pulling her back across the seat and stroking up her back. He kisses her softly, she can taste the beer he had with dinner, and maybe chocolate from desert. 

“No more dating other people.” It’s a demand. Her voice is tight, hoping he doesn’t argue. 

“I only want to date you.”

They make out in his truck for a few more moments, but it starting to get chilly and so he walks her upstairs. He leads her down the hallways, their hands laced together. In her apartment Cruz is asleep on the couch, the light from under Foster’s door lets her know Emily is home. Feeling a little daring she fists her hand in his shirt and hauls him into her room. 

This is a first. He’s never been in be her room before. Once the door is closed she clumsily unbuttons his shirt, removing it and tossing it into the trash can beside her dresser. Matt’s grinning at her, standing beside her bed in his plain white tee shirt. 

“You are going to hurt so bad tomorrow.”

“I only had to drink because you were on our date with someone else!”

He reels her in, wraps her up in his arms.

“I’m serious Sylvie. I just want you.”

She smiles as he kisses her. Kissing Matt in her bedroom is different than kissing Matt in his truck, or pressed against his truck, or even pressed against the side of Molly’s. 

“You’re such a good kisser.”

“You’re a little drunk.” He sounds amused. 

“If I go shower, will you be here when I get back?”

“If you want me to be.” 

Sylvie nods. She ruffles through some drawers and leaves him alone in her room. Matt looks at the family photos on her dresser, the books on her nightstand. Her closet is a little open, and he sees the bag her bridesmaid dress is in. There’s a bag from a lingerie store hooked on it.

Matt lies down on her bed. It’s soft and smells like Sylvie. Flowers and her eco friendly laundry detergent. His eyes have slid shut when she returns, firmly shutting the door and sliding into the bed beside him. Her hair is still damp, and the smell of her shampoo is amplified. 

“Matt,” she whispers.

“Hum?”

“Cruz asked why you were in my bedroom.”

“What did you say?”

“Because you agreed to not date anyone else.”

Her legs are bare, she’s propped one over his. 

“Matt.”

He says her name. 

“You’re staying the night.”

“We have shift tomorrow.”

“Mattttttt,” Sylvie draws out his name. “I just stopped being mad at you.”

“Okay.” 

Sylvie snuggles in closer. 

“Matt.”

“Yeah,” she can hear the grin in his one word reply. 

“Take off your jeans, we’re trying to sleep.”

He obliges. 

————-

Sylvie wakes up at quarter to 4 with a pounding headache, and Matt under her cheek. They have a little more than an hour to sleep before they have to get up. She kisses his shirt once, right over the heart before she closes her eyes again. 

———-

Matt wakes her at 5 on the nose. 

“Baby,” he whispers kissing her neck. “I have to go get my gear.”

“Don’t go.” Sylvie knows she’s a little whiny. 

“I don’t want to. But we’ve got work. And I’ve got a new date to plan.”

She squirms in bed as he gets up, and really, he’s nice to look at. 

“Matt.” He turns back to her, buttoning his jeans. 

“I only want to date you, too.”

It’s takes him an other 15 minutes to leave. 

———-

Gabby does indeed show back up at the house. She comes just before dinner, with a whole tray of Doughnut Vault donuts. It’s during a moment between calls, and the while house is in the common room when she comes in. Sylvie watches Herrmann make a face towards Matt, who is overly dramatically obsorbed in his paper. His hand is on her thigh under the table, Sylvie tries to scoot her chair away, but he holds on. 

“I got you the cinnamon one you’ve always liked.” Gabby offers, sliding the box over. 

“Thanks,” Matt replies, still reading his paper. 

Gabby looks taken a back before she pushes the box towards Sylvie.

“I couldn’t remember your favourite.”

“She likes the sour cream ones,” is Matt’s mild reply. 

“I’m not up for donuts.”

“Hurting after yesterday?” There is a grin on Gabby’s face. 

Brett blushes. 

“I am never having sangria again.”

Gabby sits down, places her purse in the table. 

“Did the guy ever call?”

Sylvie is furiously blushing now. Fiddling with her water bottle. She grabs her watch, and watches with detached amazement, fear and shock and Casey extends his own arm and settles his hand around her wrist. When she looks up she sees that Gabby is watching too. 

Her voice is hard when she speaks next, and the whole room is turning in to see what’s happening. 

“Can we talk, Matt?”

Casey shakes his head, still reading the paper, one hand holding Sylvie’s wrist. 

“I said what I had to say last night.”

Gabby is pursing her lips. 

“Well, excuse me for being confused when my husband is holding my best friends hand!”

Sylvie’s wishes she could disappear. 

Matt’s paper is down on the table, and his eyes are flashing that specific shade of blue that makes him look almost inhuman. Behind them, there is suddenly movement, and Stella and Herrmann usher everyone to leave the room. Sylvie hears Gallo turn off the grill. 

“Ex-husband.” Matt is wildly even in his tone. 

“What about November?”

Sylvie makes to get up, but even as she stands Matt is not letting go of her wrist. 

“Gabby. I’ve moved on.”

“We slept together not even six months ago!”

Seriously, Sylvie wishes the earths would open up and swallow her. She didn’t know that, suspected it, but didn’t know.

“You left. You signed the divorce paper. You do not get to be mad when I fall in love with someone else.”

Sylvie does a double take so hard she nearly falls over. Gabby sucks in a breath of air like she is in pain. 

“So you move on with my best friend?”

“When was the last time you even checked in on Sylvie? Did you know she broke her arm last summer because I called her into a burning building that collapsed?” Matt is now standing up, one hand on the table, one still gripping Sylvie’s. “Did you call her to check in when she ended her engagement? Do you know that her birth mom has contacted her?”

Sylvie reflexively reaches out a hand on soothe Matt’s shoulder. 

“No!” He continues. “You don’t know that, because you never call. Because you moved to the middle of the ocean. You do not get to come back here and try to make me backslide. I’ve moved on. So should you.”

He is breathing heavily, face angry, but he keeps hold of Sylvie as he moves from the room. His hand is gentle on her wrist. Matt slides it down and takes her hand instead. He’s marching, down the hall towards his quarters. They pass a wide eyed Ritter and Foster, Tuesday standing between them. 

When they reach his quarters, Matt ushers her in and closes the door, then he sinks onto his bed. He rests his head in one hand, it should be noted he is still holding Sylvie’s hand. 

“Matt.” She offers. Stepping into his space. 

He pulls her close, from behind her legs, above the knee. Pushes his head into her stomach, and just lets out this sigh. 

“I’m really sorry about that.”

Sylvie has her free hand in his hair, carding her fingers, patting it back down. 

“I didn’t want you to find out about her and I, last November, like that.”

Sylvie had kind of forgot about that. 

“I think we can agree now, that we do not need to have a previous sexual partners talk.”

“Ugh.” Matt’s voice is muffled, but still disgruntled. “I know too many of your previous sexual partners.”

“Matt!” She exclaims. “You do not!”

“Sheffield? Antonio?” She makes a face at him. “Roman.”

“How did you know that?” Genuinely, she’s curious. 

“It was how he looked at you.”

Matt’s looking up at her now. The anger drained form his face, now he looks like her Matt. 

“Well everyone know about us now.”

Sylvie untangles his arm around her waist and sits beside him. 

“Did I honestly just have a fight with my ex-wife, at work, about my new girlfriend?”  
Matt sounds more amused than anything. 

“Terribly professional.” Sylvie archly replies. 

He is still holding her hand. 

“I meant what I said.”

Sylvie looks over, brows kinked. 

“That you’ve moved on?”

“That she doesn’t get to be mad about who I fell in love with.”

Seriously, he expects her to breath after that? Matt expects clear cognitive thought after that bombshell? She can’t. 

So she kisses him instead.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m like tinker bell I need applause to live.
> 
> But genuinely, thank you for the support.


End file.
